The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 20
Articles in this issue
- At the Chicago meeting of the Cycle Manufacturers' Association membership was restricted solely to makers of bicycles and motorcycles, whereupon W. H. Crosby, a parts maker, resigned the presidency; George N. Pierce was elevated to the chair, F. E. Southard of the Toledo Metal Wheel Co. elected vice-president, and Harry Walburg (Miami Cycle & Mfg.) and D. W. Gould (Pope Mfg.) continued as treasurer and secretary.
- Trade notes: fire at the City Cycle Co., Cortland, N. Y.; Joseph E. Ferland of Lawrence and James Lehan of Stoughton, Mass., enlarging their repair shops; shops destroyed by fire at Camden, N. Y. (George Stewart) and Tampa, Fla. (Ned Place); and the Boston Cycle & Sundry Co. burned out at 42-46 Hanover street, Boston.
- George W. Nock, the Philadelphia jobber, has applied for articles of incorporation to turn his business into the George W. Nock Co.
- W. H. Crosby, Ralph D. Webster of the Eclipse Machine Co. and H. S. White of the Shelby Steel Tube Co. issued a joint call for all makers of bicycle parts and materials to meet at the Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland, on 21 February to form an association of their own after the C. M. A. shut them out.
- The new Armac motorcycle frames a 4 1/2-inch Shelby steel tube as a truss through head, seat mast and hanger; its copper-plated interior is split by a brazed bulkhead so the forward compartment carries gasolene for a hundred miles and the rear one lubricating oil, both fed through filters and regulated by knurled screws working needle valves.
- Explains that manganese bronze contains almost no manganese: the element merely serves as a vehicle for blending a proportion of iron into the alloy, so the name describes a process rather than the composition.
- The Hanover-Gummi-Kamm company of Germany has patented a rubber ball-and-socket inner tube, one moulded closed end fitting into the recessed other end, so a motorcycle tube can be replaced in a few minutes instead of taking down half the machine; credited to Tire News.
- The Reo Motor Car Co. of Lansing, Michigan, is distributing a little thumb book whose pages carry consecutive photographs of a motor; slipped rapidly beneath the thumb they animate the four-cycle stages for the layman.
- Mark Guy, the veteran Asbury Park, N. J., dealer, is building a new garage at Main street and Lake avenue, but a large part of it will be salesroom and repair shop and he will continue to handle the Pope line of bicycles.
- A sage observer argues that a customer is far nearer a sale when he finds the article in daily use by the concern he is dealing with, and nearer still if he sees it producing the very effect he wants in his own home.
- Fourth Assistant Postmaster General DeGraw now writes the Bicycling World that no 'ban' was ever raised and the department will sanction rural carriers using automobiles, motorcycles and bicycles where roads permit, reversing his December statement that carriers might use them only occasionally to rest their horses.
- M. A. Rey, of 16 Cite Bertrand, Paris, has shown the 'Reaction,' whose bottom bracket slides along a single bottom tube against a spring, so that the added exertion of hill-climbing thrusts the bracket forward, draws the fork stays and shortens the wheel base.
- The newly formed Retail Bicycle Dealers' Association of Northern California elected directors including B. B. Sharp of Bakersville, F. A. Homan and A. G. Ehman of Fresno and A. Wright of Stockton, with J. A. Desimone of San Jose president, Joseph Holle of San Francisco vice-president and E. A. Doanhoo of Fresno treasurer.
- Buffalo, N. Y., police records show $1,227.50 worth of bicycle property reported lost in the last quarter of 1905, of which only $494.50 was recovered, though the police insist a machine left unlocked is not stolen and so claim not one was actually taken.
- A London concern has brought out a 'puncture putty' pressed over the hole in an inner tube and dusted with French chalk or covered with paper to stop it adhering to the outer cover; it is sold in small round vest-pocket tins.
- Welcomes both the Cycle Manufacturers' Association and the parts and accessory makers' body now proposed, arguing that sustained publicity in the public prints, not the jobbers' half-hearted 'Ride a Bicycle Campaign,' is the keynote to bettering trade conditions.
- Argues that the perishability of tires largely explains why lapsed riders never take up cycling again: the man who resurrects his machine finds the mechanism sound but the tires useless, and the delay of replacing them kills the impulse.
- Urges every motorcyclist living in or with influence in New Jersey to see his legislator over the Freylinghuysen bill, which would tax non-residents $2 for each excursion into the State and has strong backing.
- A half-page group photograph of the New York Motorcycle Club, some twenty members in riding kit ranged on rocks and grass.
- The public hearing on Senator Freylinghuysen's New Jersey bill is set for 20 February, having been postponed from the previous Tuesday; the F. A. M. has stirred up the State and the Brooklyn Motorcycle Club voted financial help against a measure taxing man and machine per horsepower, charging $2 a day of non-residents and $50 for a dealer's licence.
- A movement is afoot in Rochester, N. Y., to secure the annual meet of the Federation of American Motorcyclists, and word from Chicago suggests an invitation may be extended from there too.
- Ten leading speed merchants of Salt Lake City met and decided to organize a racing cyclists' union, naming Hardy Downing, Walter Bardgett and Iver Redman to draft a constitution; meanwhile F. E. Schefski has succeeded Harry W. Heagren at the Salt Palace and capitalists propose a second eight-lap saucer in Utahna Park.
- Robl headed the German middle-distance winnings for 1905 with $6,800, down $3,500 on 1904, ahead of Guenther $6,500, Willy Schmitter $5,500 and Demke $5,450; Willy Arend led the sprinters with $1,150, while Piet Dickenmann won nearly $5,000 and Contenet $3,500.
- William J. Hampshire of San Jose, Cal., won both the Century Road Club of America's 1905 mileage and century competitions, covering 11,826 miles plus 73 centuries for a total of 19,126 miles, including seventeen consecutive centuries in September; Fred F. Perreault of Malden was second in centuries and Thomas W. Davis of Peoria second in mileage.
- The New York and Brooklyn Motorcycle Clubs met and fixed a joint 1906 programme: spring century runs on 22 April and 6 May, the New York hill-climbing contest on 30 May and a Brooklyn 250-mile endurance contest on Long Island on 4 July, plus 50-mile Inter-Club Non-Stop team contests for cups offered by Presidents Nason and Carritt.
- A London child swallowed a toy bicycle and, the diet disagreeing with him, was taken to a hospital where his throat was cut and the cycle brought out through the incision.
- An old timer's yarn about a friction-geared motorcycle built by a village inventor who later perished drilling a well with nitro-glycerine; presented with it by the widow, the narrator started the motor before mounting on a creek bridge, was hurled backward and knocked senseless, and the machine was never seen again.
- The German Tracks' Association, at its annual meeting in Berlin on 14 January, voted to abolish windshields on pacing motor bicycles after a petition from nearly all the continental pace followers, and also fixed a minimum 24-inch front wheel, ruled out foot or racing-hook contact with it, and abolished entrance fees.
- C. C. Hopkins, the San Francisco dealer, reports selling the first 1906 Indian tricar to Walter S. Hobart, the San Francisco millionaire and Pacific Coast champion polo player, who drove it round the bay to his country home at San Mateo the day he bought it.
- The International Cup for motorcycles moves from France to Austria this season; the German Motorcycle Club has challenged first and asked to run its eliminating trials over the Sarthe course, which would put the German and Austrian trials on 3 and 4 June and the Cup race on 29 June.
- 'Jock' in the Scottish Cyclist argues that though matrimony and a rising generation thin the ranks of tourists yearly, new hands more than replace them, and that judging a tourist by his bulk of baggage is erroneous — he himself wanders a fortnight with scarcely a symptom of luggage.
- A column of proverbs recast for wheelmen: 'Where there's a wheel there's a way,' 'A wheel in hand is worth two in the shop,' 'Empty tires make least speed' and 'The loud report bespeaks the empty tire.'
- The Boston Bicycle Club, founded 11 February 1878, holds its twenty-eighth annual dinner at 'Hendries'' tonight; the summons, in 'Papa' Weston's handiwork with a jingle by Quincy Kilby, promises joints carved and served at table by four members, ale drawn from the wood in the hall, 'Chic Vaudeville,' and evening dress forbidden.
- An old New Orleans cyclist recounts a 114-mile exploring ride by five riders from Ponchatoula, La., to Bay St. Louis, Miss., via Honey Island — a ferry over the Tangipahoa, dinner at Abita Springs, sand hot enough to melt tires, a six-foot snake and a moccasin killed, and a bayou crossed with the bicycles hung round their necks.
- Under its new president C. W. Nason the New York Motorcycle Club held its first annual beefsteak dinner, the clubroom turned into a sawdust circle with members as white-capped chefs and a menu of 'Open Throttle and Advance Spark' (liquid appetizers), 'Reliability Beefsteak,' 'Baked Mufflers' (potatoes) and 'Smoky Exhaust' (cigars).
- Motorcyclists at the New York Automobile Show traded speed yarns: Harry Gliesman's telegraph poles flew by like a picket fence, J. P. Bruyere's like a solid board fence, and George W. Sherman passed alternate fields of corn and beans on the old White Horse pike so fast that they 'looked like succotash.'
- A contemporary asks who supplies the bent nails that always land point upward, noting that hundreds of them, all alike and fresh from the factory, were picked up within a few yards on the forest roads near St. Germain during a recent French race.